


What Could’ve Been – The Revenant

by badlifechoices



Series: Jason Todd Birthday Week 2018 [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, nothing graphic though, quite a bit of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 03:18:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15720900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badlifechoices/pseuds/badlifechoices
Summary: The sound of the explosion tears through the silence of the snowy landscape. It makes him stop dead in his tracks, shock freezing his limbs in place as his eyes widen with dread.-What if instead of Jason, the Joker had killed Bruce in that warehouse in Sarajevo?





	What Could’ve Been – The Revenant

_You know, I thought- I thought I'd be the last person you'd ever let him hurt. If it had been you that he beat to a bloody pulp, if he had taken you from this world, I would've done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil, death-worshiping garbage and then send him off to hell!_

The laughter is ringing in his head, high pitched, resounding, insane. It doesn’t stop, like a broken record. His pulse is like a drum in his ears, his lungs agonised by the strain and his legs are screaming with every step. But he can’t stop. He has to be faster, knows that every second could mean life or death. The beeping on his tracking device speeds up, promising him that he’s getting closer and he prays to whoever is listening that he’s wrong. Nausea washes through him in waves, fear like the taste of bile on his tongue. His eyes are fixed on the building ahead, the warehouse on top of the hill that looms over him like an omen of death.

The sound of the explosion tears through the silence of the snowy landscape. It makes him stop dead in his tracks, shock freezing his limbs in place as his eyes widen with dread. The ground shakes beneath his feet. There’s no flash of light, no fireball, just a cloud of smoke and debris surrounding him, clouding his vision. The blood in his veins freezes, ice crystals growing in his mind and there’s no air left for him to breathe. The world is blurry, a maelstrom of colours and shapes around him. The ground seems to be pulled from his feet and he stumbles. Finally, he can move again, tumbling forward, dry lips bleeding with the sound of his scream: “Bruce!” The despair is colouring his voice, makes it crack and fail and yet he keeps shouting that name.

Jason pushes through the remains of the building, calling out over and over again but there’s no response. His gloves are torn, fingers bruised and bleeding where the debris cut into his hands, but he doesn’t feel it. The cold spreads, devouring his limbs as his mind is focused on one task alone. His heart stops, when he spots the black cape. His movements have lost all of their grace, as he scrambles to reach the cloth. “Bruce.” It’s not a scream anymore; his voice seems to have left him entirely. The costume is torn, exposing burnt skin and singed flesh where the Kevlar couldn’t withstand the force of the explosion. Bruce’s face is unmasked, bloodied and broken and there’s a part of him that knows, the other man is dead, without having to check for his pulse.

His hands are trembling too much. He barely manages to get a hold on the large piece of rubble, Bruce is buried under, has to push his whole weight against it to move it away. The sight sends panic surging through him. There’s a piece of rebar sticking out of Bruce’s stomach, anchoring his body to the ground as though the building itself is trying to keep him in place. Blood stains the yellow utility belt, soaks the cape and pools on the broken concrete around him. “Bruce- “, his voice breaks, his fingers scrambling for the other man’s neck, though he already knows that he won’t find any sign of life. Pain slithers into his chest, agony slowly crawling into his mind, as he sinks to his knees. He gathers Bruce in his arms as best as he can, pulls him against his chest. He doesn’t feel the tears fall from his eyes, doesn’t feel anything apart from the pain.

Jason buries his face in his mentor’s shoulder, holding onto him oh so gently as though he could bring him back if he just makes sure that Bruce knows he’s loved. But there’s no miraculous draw of breath, no pulse resurfacing. There’s only silence. There’s no way he can contain the feelings raging in his chest, it’s too much for him. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to think. He screams, choked cries in agony, broken by the tears. He digs his fingernails into his own arms until he’s torn open the skin.

Hours pass and night falls. Jason lost any and all feeling for the passing of time, his mind is blank but for the pain. Only when the moon is already climbing to its throne in the sky, does he find the strength to call Alfred.

They free Bruce from the rebar and pull him from his arms. They’re talking, maybe to each other, maybe to him. He doesn’t hear them because his world has gone silent. There’s only the rushing of his blood in his ears. Someone helps him up, drags him to the helicopter but he’s far away. It’s though his body is remote controlled, while he’s hovering high above the scene. His clothes are torn and soaked with blood, there’s blood dripping from his arms and smeared over his face.

 

When Robin returns to Gotham he returns as a revenant. He doesn’t take over the mantle of the Batman, no, he doesn’t need to change his identity to follow his new objective. He keeps the colourful outfit, even keeps the bright yellow cape. He’s still barely sixteen but it seems that he has aged decades in just these few days. He attends Bruce’s funeral and the sight of the coffin is enough to fill his eyes with tears. Despair paints wet streaks over his cheeks but his veins are filled with ice. That same night, he upgrades his arsenal. By day he takes over the manor, gives interviews about how he’s the main beneficiary of Bruce Wayne’s will and now the official owner of Wayne Enterprises. By night he tracks down every lead that he has to find the monster that took his hope away.

The Joker is elusive, knows how to hide but Jason is like a bloodhound. There are no tricks, no false tracks that can keep him long enough to keep up the head start the Joker got. Robin descends over the city at night and when he returns in the morning, his clothes are stained crimson red. Where he was a hopeful boy before, kindness deeply rooted in his heart, he is now merciless. The ice has spread far enough to reach his heart and with every night that passes it grows colder. Like a crystal it tears into his chest, ensures that his wounds don’t heal.

He doesn’t care if the people hate him or love him, knows that his methods spread enough fear for the criminal world to shiver whenever he nears. Bruce trained him into the perfect weapon and now the Joker has disengaged the safety switch. Where the Joker is insane and doesn’t hesitate to drop bodies right and left, Jason is disciplined, precise and deadly. No matter how often Alfred tries to get through to him, even the butler seems to realise that Jason needs this, that the only thing keeping him from falling into that deep pit inside his mind is his crusade to bring everyone down who had their hands in Bruce’s death.

When he finds the Joker there’s not a moment of inhibition. He has dreamt about this moment for months, has thought up the most horrendous tortures to submit this monster to. He should do all those horrible things to him that he has dealt out to others. But when he looks the creature in the eyes, he fids that he will deny him this last satisfaction. He won’t allow the Joker to feel special, to know that he is above others even in his moment of death. The first batarang pierces the monster’s eye, the second slices deep into the side of his neck. He bleeds out in an abandoned alley in Saint Petersburg, abandoned by his last followers.

He’s too frozen to feel any satisfaction after this kill that he almost worked a whole year for. Jason doesn’t know what he expected anymore, if he hoped for some kind of relief or redemption. He hasn’t been back to the manor since he first left Gotham city and he’s not planning on returning at all. He knows Alfred can’t approve of his actions and he doesn’t want to involve the butler in this. Going back only entails that Alfred will try and change his mind, but he won’t succeed. Jason knows he’s already responsible for many headaches and sleepless nights the butler has to endure. There’s no need to add to it. He doesn’t need a home anymore because he knows that there is no place in the world where he could feel safe anymore.

His clothes are stained with blood and so are his hands. He’s slain the monster, but he knows that his crusade isn’t over yet. Someone mentioned a connection between the Joker and Ra’s al Ghul. If this checks out there could be more to Bruce’s murder, than Jason initially thought. And if that’s the case, then there are more people he has to turn his sight on. He doesn’t bother cleaning the blood out of his costume because he knows there will be more added to it all too soon.

When they took Bruce away a part of him died as well and now he appears as a vengeful spirit roaming the earth only to avenge his own death. And he won’t stop until the rivers run red and there’s no one left under the sky who ever laid a hand on him.


End file.
